Alabama

Alabama's troubled prison system brings unlikely political pair to the table

Maria Morris, managing attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, announces a federal lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections alleging that the system violates federal law by ignoring inmates' medical and mental health needs. Morris spoke outside DOC's offices in Montgomery, Ala., on June 17, 2014. Morris was joined by William Van Der Pol Jr., staff attorney for the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, which is also taking part in the lawsuit, alleging discrimination against prisoners with disabilities. (Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

Alabama State Sen. Cam Ward and Southern Poverty Law Center managing attorney Maria Morris went on "Around the Nation" to discuss possible fixes to the underfunded, overcrowded system.

Ward, the chairman of the state's Prison Reform Task Force, called prison reform "third-rail politics" that no one would touch a decade ago, the report states. Now it's a pressing issue since corrections costs the state more than $460 million annually, he said.

"You'd have to be blind whether you're politically right or politically left to not recognize that 192 percent capacity in your prison facilities is a problem," Ward said, according to the report. "There's just no other way around it."

He suggested the state build new prisons to address the overcrowding, the report states. But Morris, a self-described "liberal Democrat," said building new prisons would be "a very bad solution," according to the report. Instead, she proposed fixing the laws to reduce sentencing.

"We need to be providing appropriate care and staffing for all the people in the prisons," Morris said, according to the report. "Those are things that cost money. And Alabama can't afford it."

The SPLC Center filed a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections in June alleging the health care provided to inmates was inadequate and unconstitutional.

Ward also said that he was unsure whether the health care provided to inmates "met the threshold of being unconstitutional yet," according to the report.

AL.com reported last month that since 2007, two firms that employed the husband of the state's top prison official won contracts to X-ray inmates.